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Great to hear so much discussion of Idaho, and glad that Charlie visited Boise, my hometown. I had to laugh when he mentioned the panic in the 1990’s over militia backlashes. I was in high school debate at the time, and I remember people running arguments about militias getting ready to start military insurrections in places like Idaho, when we were in Idaho, debating the issue, and no one I knew was in, or knew anyone who was in, a militia. A great example of the thought leaders on the coasts imagining places like Idaho as being different than what they really were.

Boise actually has fairly mild winters, milder than in Salt Lake, which is farther south than Boise but also 1000ft higher. Whatever objections you have to living in Boise, a harsh winter shouldn’t be one of them.

Also, wearing a beer tee shirt in SLC wouldn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. We aren’t sensitive about such things. It wouldn’t be appropriate to wear to church, but elsewhere we wouldn’t give a rip.

I could not make out what conspiracy that was, that the guy who sold Kevin a car was talking about.

Conspiracy theories don’t just simplify the world, they also provide alternative explanations for social phenomena, when the truth is too painful to contemplate. (Classic example, Germans were eager to believe they had been “stabbed in the back”, and hadn’t lost the Great War fair and square.) This applies to what is perhaps the greatest conspiracy theory in our society today: white racism. Most African Americans don’t want to hear that the problems of their communities arise from within those communities.

Since when do conservatives identify tax breaks as government expenditures?

I thought only liberals did that, under the assumption that any part of your income the government lets you keep is a present or subsidy from the government.

Conservatives should use tax breaks for Amazon as an argument for tax breaks in general, not use envy of Amazon as an argument for increasing its taxes.

Conservatism has always been against “picking winners and losers”, giving one company a tax break that others don’t receive. It’s yet another aspect of conservatism that went by the wayside when Trump’s supporters redefined conservatism as being “whatever the Dear Leader believes”.

My mom would often take grand kids to Coeure d’Alene for back to school shopping, but I never heard anyone pronounce it, like Charlie.

I think people believe in conspiracies because it puts them in the know, like they’re smarter than everyone else. Who are just sleep walking to their deaths. Also, they look at the idiots on TV, and think these fools cant actually be in charge? Can they? That maybe more frightening than any Illuminati, alien reptile run world.

No one should move to Idaho, and if you are a liberal, you should leave.

It’s pronounced Coeur (yes, like French) da LANE, stress on the last syllable.

In an Idaho town that is neither Boise nor Coeur d’Alene, it was -40 degrees F, here, this winter, for real, not counting wind chill.

Despite Mr. Williamson’s characterization of Boise as leftish, the 1st congressional district elected Raul Labrador, and then Russ Fulcher, who were and are among the most conservative Congress members. The 2nd district is home to noted squish, Mike Simpson, who keeps getting re-elected because the Democrats insist on running socialists.

Coeur d’Alene was a hotbed of labor unrest in the 1890s, including murders, riots, sabotage, so extreme that martial law was declared (among other actions, striking miners loaded a train with 3000 pounds of dynamite, ran it into the Bunker Hill silver mine mill, blew it up, and then shot to death several people trying to escape, including one of their own members). The Western Federation of Miners tradition states that the organization was born in the Boise jail. Idaho’s 4th governor, Frank Steunenberg (a Democrat and a Union supporter) who had declared martial law, was assassinated in 1905, by Frank Orchard. Union leaders Bill Haywood, George Pettibone, and Charles Moyers were tried for ordering Steunenberg’s murder, but were not convicted.

I will not comment on Ruby Ridge, except to say that Randy Weaver was entrapped by federal agents, and no one has ever been held accountable for the siege and the killing of Vicki and Samuel Weaver. A wrongful death civil suit brought by the family for the deaths of Vicki and Samuel Weaver was settled out of court. Mrs. Weaver was holding a 10-month old baby at the time she was shot, and Samuel Weaver was only 14 years old.

After hearing Andrew McCabe, I no longer automatically disbelieve conspiracy theories. As a wise person once said, “It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.”

Since when do conservatives identify tax breaks as government expenditures?

I thought only liberals did that, under the assumption that any part of your income the government lets you keep is a present or subsidy from the government.

Conservatives should use tax breaks for Amazon as an argument for tax breaks in general, not use envy of Amazon as an argument for increasing its taxes.

Conservatism has always been against “picking winners and losers”, giving one company a tax break that others don’t receive. It’s yet another aspect of conservatism that went by the wayside when Trump’s supporters redefined conservatism as being “whatever the Dear Leader believes”.

Jack “Enterprise Zone” Kemp was a secret Trumpkin? I never suspected!

Seriously, most classical-liberal types concluded at the time that, when across-the-board tax cuts are out of reach, cut what you can.

@mrsink — Truly, the history of the labor movement is drenched with blood. And the reason it grew rapidly after the Civil War was that millions of freed slaves were looking for work, and white workers were determined they wouldn’t get it.

Talking about the “soft coup” McCabe said he was part of, somebody on Fox News, a Republican Congressman, I think, called it “Eight Days in May”. (Movie buffs will get the reference.)

@mrsink — Truly, the history of the labor movement is drenched with blood. And the reason it grew rapidly after the Civil War was that millions of freed slaves were looking for work, and white workers were determined they wouldn’t get it.

Talking about the “soft coup” McCabe said he was part of, somebody on Fox News, a Republican Congressman, I think, called it “Eight Days in May”. (Movie buffs will get the reference.)

I’m afraid that I find your statement a little simplistic, for one thing, it was thirty years after the end of the Civil War that the labor disputes in Idaho happened, and the number of freed slaves in Idaho was pretty small.

@mrsink — Truly, the history of the labor movement is drenched with blood. And the reason it grew rapidly after the Civil War was that millions of freed slaves were looking for work, and white workers were determined they wouldn’t get it.

Talking about the “soft coup” McCabe said he was part of, somebody on Fox News, a Republican Congressman, I think, called it “Eight Days in May”. (Movie buffs will get the reference.)

I’m afraid that I find your statement a little simplistic, for one thing, it was thirty years after the end of the Civil War that the labor disputes in Idaho happened, and the number of freed slaves in Idaho was pretty small.

Sorry, I wasn’t referring to Idaho specifically. One of the worst instances of violence was the Herrin Massacre, Illinois, 1922, when strikers murdered 20 “scabs” and mine guards after they had surrendered. After 1865, often the “scabs” (i.e., competitors) were black.

In Johnny Cash’s song about the train called “The City of New Orleans“, we’re told how “the sons of Pullman porters/and the sons of engineers/ride their fathers’ magic carpet made of steel … “ Pullman porter — housekeeping the sleeping cars — was the only job the railroad unions would permit blacks to take.